City Desk :
Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS) President Major General (retd) ANM Muniruzzaman on Sunday said it is important for everyone to understand all the connotation of this new space of influence operations so that no one is misguided.
He particularly referred to Artificial Intelligence (AI) for elucidating how it can complicate the whole issue and magnify the problems that they are already facing, reports UNB.
“The advent of AI has made the situation far more complex”, he said, pointing out the necessity of establishing more efficient fact-checking mechanisms and forensic labs in Bangladesh.
Muniruzzaman said the threat associated with influence operations is evolving every day and in a rapid manner.
BIPSS organized the policy circle on “Influence Operations: An Emerging Threat” in Dhaka.
Country Representative- Bangladesh, Internews Shameem Ara Sheuli, lecturer, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka Tanvir Habib, and lecturer, Department of Peace, Conflict and Human Rights, Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP) Marjuka Binte Afzal were the speakers who shared their knowledge and perspectives on the discussion topic.
Senior Research Fellow, BIPSS Shafqat Munir said influence operations are emerging as a key security and political challenge in many countries.
Among many facets of influence operations, Munir highlighted how it undermines democracy and societies.
“Over the last ten years, we have seen in various countries of Europe, Asia and other continents how various actors have used influence operations to divide societies and spread disinformation”, he said.
He also mentioned that even elections have been undermined as a result of influence operations.
“We are now increasingly living in the information space. The utmost importance of information has become critical not only to our individual lives but also to our social lives, our national lives and our international thinking”, Muniruzzaman said.
Shamim Ara Sheuli depicted that before the 1990s, the authorities, influential groups, political parties and others used to rely on traditional media platforms like radio, television to influence the targeted groups; but with the emergence of some new information technologies, a new dimension to the influence operations has been added.
“Influence operations are nothing new, it has always been there”, she said while differentiating the tools that facilitate these types of operations. She also identified that AI has become a new tool of influence operations and that it can be threatening to some extent.
Tanvir Habib talked about how influence operations are initiated with the intentions to create some certain outcomes and how these can create particular reactions among the targeted group of people.
He identified some key features of the current world’s influence operations such as the aggregation or the abundance of data, the question of algorithm, anonymity etc. among others.
“There are mainly two types of influence operations; one is longer term exposure and the other one is shorter term”, he mentioned.
He described that the longer term operations may sustain for four to five years while the shorter ones may exist for a few months.
